Chapter 7 Working with health

Of the 72000 sen permeating the human body, three are considered especially important. They are sen sumana, sen ittha and sen pingkhala. In yoga and Ayur-vedic medicine they are called sushumna-nadi, ida-nadi and pingala-nadi. Tibetan Medicine, which derives from Ayur-veda, identifies three similar channels and calls them tsa-uma, tsa-kyangma and tsa-roma. In Traditional Chinese Medicine they are thought to be the governing vessel, which runs the length of the back of the body, and the two bladder channels either side of it (Motoyama 2003, pp. 136–137).

Despite some similarities there is little agreement across these systems as to where exactly these channels run and what their purpose is. In yoga, Ayur-veda and Tibetan Medicine the two outer channels are described as weaving a double helix around the central channel while in Thai Massage and Traditional Chinese Medicine the outer lines run parallel to the central channel.

The only channel that really does seem to be the same in each tradition is the central channel, although even here there is uncertainty as to whether this is a superficial line on the back of the body or, in some way, related to the spine or the spinal cord. Recent developments in osteopathic theory offer an interesting new view and, possibly, even an anatomical location for this central channel.

In 1899 William Garner Sutherland was studying osteopathy at the school of its founder Andrew Taylor Still. Sutherland was struck by the thought that perhaps the cranial bones did not fuse, as was generally believed, but remained forever mobile at the sutures. From then until the late 1920s he proved this to be so through experiments on his own head and developed a system for the application of osteopathic technique to the cranial bones.

In the early 1930s Sutherland turned his attention from the cranial bones to the dural membranes within the skull. He perceived a continuity of the membranes from where within the skull they contain and support the brain, down to the sacrum as the dural sheath surrounding and protecting the spinal cord. He described this membrane envelope as ‘tadpole like’ and named it the ‘core link’.

In the late 1930s Sutherland’s attention was drawn to a palpable tidal movement expressed by the cerebrospinal fluid surrounding and supporting the central nervous system within the core link. In order to explain this phenomenon he developed the theory of a ‘primary respiratory mechanism’. This theory suggests that the living body expresses inhalation and exhalation as waves of movement throughout its fluids. Primary respiration begins during the development of the fetus, long before the lungs are ready to breathe. Sutherland’s theory of a primary respiratory mechanism was ultimately based on five palpable phenomena which, collectively, he called the cranial rhythmic impulse. These phenomena are:

1. The brain and the spinal cord exhibit an inherent movement. In the spinal cord this movement is expressed as a snake-like wave of flexion and extension travelling its length. In the brain this movement combines flexion and extension with a widening and narrowing across the ventricles.

2. Cerebrospinal fluid flows towards the head during the inhalation phase of primary respiration and ebbs towards the sacrum during the exhalation phase.

3. The membranes inside the skull and spinal column move in response to the tide-like ebb and flow of cerebrospinal fluid and the wave-like movement of the central nervous system.

4. The bones of the cranium accommodate and respond to these tidal movements through articulation at their sutures.

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